Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Nothing is happening in my area. I mentioned four other sites around Dublin where nothing is happening on public land. Do not tell me that is because I do not want to see success. I can see that nothing is happening in Shanganagh, in Cherrywood, on the Oscar Traynor Road site, in Clonburris or in St. Michael's Estate. We can go through the list.

What the Minister just said about affordability is very worrying. It is about the income level at which a person can apply for an affordable house, but it also raises the question of the point in applying for an affordable house that is not affordable. Average house prices in my area are now €600,000. Private developers are selling the 10% of so-called social housing back to the local authority and are looking for prices of up to €450,000. That is not affordable. Is affordable going to be affordable and will local authorities be guaranteed that money will be made available so that affordable housing on public land will be affordable? If that is not going to be the case, we need to build council housing on those sites.

There is not enough money. There is €1.14 billion in capital spending for social housing this year. According to the Minister's targets, that is going to deliver 5,900 houses. It is not enough. We need a minimum of 10,000 council houses a year. The budget is going to have to be doubled to get close to addressing the extent of the housing crisis and to begin to make an impact on the figure of 144,000 on the housing lists.

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